Now or Never
by Releasingthetension
Summary: Walter was left heartbroken after seeing Drew at Paige's apartment. But after two days of being ignored by her boss, Paige wants to confront him. Walter has assumptions about Drew's presence, but could he be all wrong...


So like most others in the Cyclone, I was left heartbroken for Walter at the end of Crossroads 1x20. But I wanted to explore a possible reason for Drew being at Paige's. I am in no way a fan of Drew, but I wanted to portray him in a less hateful, perhaps in a more understanding way. I own none of the Scorpion characters (as if that wasn't already obvious).

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Paige wondered through the front door of the garage, placing her handbag on her desk as she made a v-line straight for the coffee machine. Tucking some of her wavy blonde hair behind her ear, she stood on tiptoes looking for her mug that had been put away in an above cupboard. She smiled as she found the blue and green patterned piece of porcelain, and brought it down to the countertop. As she finished pouring her morning cup, she heard footsteps approach from behind. She turned around to find her boss standing with his coffee cup under the stairs.

"Morning Walter," Paige smiled gently at the genius, but he refused to smile back in response.

"Paige." His voice was cold and distant. She examined him closely; dark rims below his eyes suggested that he hadn't slept and if she didn't know any better, she swore that was the same shirt he was wearing yesterday. Walter had barely spoken to her the last couple of days, and it seemed as if he was doing his absolute best to avoid her at all times. Paige had decided that enough was enough – while she had been able to let it slide recently, chances could be that a case would come up soon and they needed to be communicating in order to do their jobs effectively. She looked him dead in the eyes. "Walter, we need to talk."

He avoided eye contact and walked past her to the coffee machine to refill his cup. Paige was getting fed up with his child-like behavior, "Walter that was not a request!" Her voice was getting louder, as if yelling at him would break down his wall. "Upstairs. Loft. Now!"

And with that she stomped up the staircase to wait for him. A couple of minutes later she heard the slow thudding of Walter's black shoes on the metal steps. She had no idea what had set him down this spiral of depression but she was going to get to the bottom of it. Walter slowly wondered into the loft, but remained in the doorway, his mug of coffee in his hand. Paige was sitting on the sofa, secretly hoping that he would join her, but she had to remind herself that Walter was a million miles away from her emotionally at the moment, and their conversation might have to be from across the room. She stood up from her seat, and crossing her arms looked over at the man who was blankly staring at her.

"Walter," she stated calmly. "Something is bothering you, and I want to know what it is. When I left after the case two days ago, I thought we were fine. Then the next day I turn up and I'm getting the cold shoulder. Why are all of a sudden you ignoring me and acting as if I don't exist?"

Walter was quite for a moment, and then replied smugly. "Obviously I'm not ignoring you Paige, and you do exist as we are currently conversing. That statement was redundant."

Paige closed her eyes; Walter was playing games with her. He was secretly hoping that his sarcasm would cause her to become frustrated and walk away. "You know what I mean Walter. The only words that have come out for your mouth to me the last couple of days have been yes, no and my name. You are refusing to make eye contact. You block me out of conversations with the group. For some reason, a reason that you are refusing to divulge to me, you are shutting me out. What have I done to make you mad, Walter?" Paige corrected herself; she was getting frustrated. Her voice began to crack as she spoke to the man in front of her, a man who kept his arms crossed and his stare blank. A man who she thought she loved. Right now, he wasn't reacting to her at all. She was breaking in front of him; she realized at that point that his indifference towards her had actually hurt more than she thought. "What have I done to cause you to hate me?"

The silence between the two was deafening. Walter stoic beside the doorframe, his arms crossed defensively across his body and his stare piercing. Paige was on the other side of the room beside the couch, her bottom lip trembling and her hands wrapped around her body as if to protect her. It felt like forever before Walter spoke.

"You are going to Maine, aren't you? I saw Drew at your apartment that night after the case. I saw you all smiling, laughing, drinking and eating." Paige's jaw dropped slightly at the revelation that Walter had been watching them. "How long has the decision been made, Paige? How long has Drew been back playing happy family with you and Ralph? You know how we all feel about Drew, and yet you are picking him as the one to provide a better environment for Ralph to grow up in than here with us." Walter's eyes narrowed, and before he knew it the words came tumbling out. He was hurting, and an uncontrollable desire to hurt her rose up in him. "Is this some grab for intimacy from him, trying to rekindle your passions from years ago? The dumb jock always gets the cheerleader, especially if she is stupid enough to fall for him in return." He regretted his words immediately.

Tears were building in Paige's eyes, part of her wanted to believe that Walter didn't mean what he said, that it was simply his uncharted EQ rearing its ugly head. But there was also the fact that those words were probably spawned from some dormant feelings in Walter, and in that case they held some truth to what he was feeling. And that was heartbreaking to accept.

"I'm not stupid, Walter," her voice just above a whisper and her eyes cast to the floor. Such a simple response had Walter softening his stance. No anger from her, just pain. He felt his chest constrict as he realized that he had wanted to hurt her, but now that he had, he wished with all his being he could take it back. He had delivered his most impacting insult; in that split second that he could never take back he had declared to Paige that she was inferior to him. Of all the people in the world he could ever call inferior, she was not one of them. She was brilliant, strong, brave, patient and tolerant. And she was exhibiting all of those qualities right now by standing her ground in front of him.

She looked up at him, her eyes shimmering but not sheading tears. "You want to know why Drew was at my house that night Walter?" She didn't wait for his response before continuing. "Because we were agreeing on a custody agreement for Ralph. Drew is going to Portland, and Ralph and I are staying here in LA."

"As much as you hate Drew, he has been legitimately trying to be a good dad to Ralph. He knows he can't give Ralph what you can, and you know what? That intimidates him. He has struggled with the fact that a complete stranger knows his son better than he does."

"Well then he shouldn't have left you when Ralph was a baby," Walter shot back. He was not in the mood to feel sorry for Drew; the man had interfered with his cyclone and his attempts to tell Paige his feelings. He was a nagging pain, and the fact that he was still even in the picture frustrated Walter.

"Are you seriously still on that? Walter, I've put that behind me, why can't you?" Paige pleaded with the genius, whose mood turned dark again. She sighed and tried to approach the matter from a different angle. "Think of it this way, if Drew and I had stayed together, we may not have settled in LA, and if that is the case there is a high likelihood that you would have never met Ralph. Is that really the way you wish it to be?" At Walter's silence, Paige sighed.

"Look, Drew came home early because they had finalized his contract. He is going to Maine permanently, and he wanted to talk to Ralph and I about coming with him. I told him that I had decided long ago that we had a home and a life here, and surprisingly he was ok with that. I was half expecting him to throw the whole 'your job is too dangerous' 'I have a job now so I can look after you' argument in there, but he didn't. Anyway we came to an agreement that Ralph would spend time with Drew in Maine over his school breaks, and if ever Drew was in LA for work Ralph could stay with him. The rest of the time Ralph will be here. We are getting the papers done up at the attorny on Friday to make it final before Drew leaves."

"Walter, Drew hesitantly acknowledges the difference you have made in Ralph's life. Our son is happy and thriving, he has friends at school and he is feeling challenged intellectually. For him to stay that way, I was always willing to fight Drew if necessary to keep him here. Thankfully it hasn't come to that and we have made an agreement that we are all happy with."

Walter's stance relaxed. She is not going to Maine. She was staying here, with Ralph, with the cyclone, with him. But there was still something on his mind. "But dinner, why were you having dinner together? You looked really happy," a tinge of jealousy wormed its way into Walter's voice, and Paige picked up on it immediately.

Paige sighed and sat down on the couch. She ran her hands through her hair then looked up at the man in front of her, "because Walter, custody agreements can't be decided upon in 15 minutes. It took us two and a half hours to work out the finer details, and by the time we were happy with it, it was dinner. So he stayed and ate with us and left at 9:30 when Ralph went to bed, I should think that's no big deal. As for being happy, well, tell me why I shouldn't be?"

When Walter didn't reply, Paige tried to clarify, "Walter, for the first time in years Drew and I are on mutual ground. We are in a good place and feel confident in our ability to co-parent our son. I'm happy because I can move on with my life without Drew's constant hounding for us to move. I want to have an amicable relationship with Drew. I want to show Ralph that although his dad and I aren't together, we can still be civilized. You neglect to recall Walter, that once upon a time, Drew was my best friend. We do have a history, and although he broke my heart, most of our memories together are good, so yeah we laughed and reminisced."

Walter swallowed the lump in his throat and he nodded his head. It took a lot for Walter O'Brien to admit he was wrong, but this was one of those moments. Paige was trying to do something admirable for her son, bring him up in an environment that had minimal conflict. Walter was being stubborn; he had been so caught up in his own hurt that he had been neglecting the fact that Ralph was going to be losing his dad, again. The boy was going to be hurting, yet Paige was here trying to soften the blow for him. At that moment, he was so proud of her.

Making eye contact with Paige again, he took a deep breath. There was one more question that he had to ask, but he knew that the moment he did all of his emotions would be exposed for Paige to see – there would be no going back. "D-did you, I mean, d-d-do you have feelings for Drew?"

Paige watched as Walter's face fell, as if he was afraid to hear her answer. She took a deep breath; it was now or never. She was not going to run from her feelings for the genius anymore. With Drew leaving the picture, she no longer felt the conflict in her heart. All she wanted and all she needed was in the man standing in front of her. She had known that for a while.

"Walter," she said, her voice just above a whisper, "I don't have feelings for Drew, I haven't had feelings for him in a long time." She watched him let out a deep breath. Relief? She hoped it was, as she started closing the gap between them.

Silence once again descended upon the loft, however the tension had now lifted. Walter was at a loss at what to do. Paige had stopped just short of him, she was still unsure as to how he would respond to her if she came to close. He wanted to close the gap, take her in his arms and finish what he wanted to start the previous evening. But then he remembered that he needed to apologize.

"Paige, I'm so sorry," Paige held his gaze as he replayed the hurtful dialogue they had shared only moments ago. "I was angry, I never meant to call you stupid or accuse you of being dishonest. I'm sorry that I've excluded you and ignored you the last couple of days." When he saw that the woman in front of him was still focusing on him, a small smirk came to his lips. "I've never been hurt by someone I really cared about before, I don't think I really knew how to handle it."

Paige's breath caught in her throat, he was sorry for everything that had happened between them, and what's more, she had really hurt him because he REALLY cared about her. She had to know, "Walter, what where you doing outside my apartment that night?"

Walter knew this question was coming. This would have been a similar scenario to what would have taken place at her apartment a couple of nights ago. It was at this point that he realized how unprepared for this conversation he actually was. "I ummm…I had come to speak to you."

Paige let out a small giggle, and gave Walter a sympathetic look; she recognized how hard this was for him. "I figured that much."

Walter gave her a smile back, "yes well, umm…I wanted to tell you that…umm," the genius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Do you remember when I gave you my true assessment of Portland? Do you remember what I told you at the end?"

"You cared about Ralph, and me," Paige gently spoke the memory back him. She blushed when she remembered the butterflies in her stomach the moment he had said those words.

"Well…I guess there was more to it. I do care for you Paige, but I'm finding that what I feel for you goes beyond anything I have felt before for anyone. I'm happy whenever I'm with you; I miss you when you're gone. I want to be close to you, even though I normally can't stand contact with others. I find myself caring about things that previously I would have ignored, only because they matter to you. I know I said to you that since Ralph had entered the picture I've been less 'me', but I think the truth is that since you have been around, I have become a better person. And I like that person." Walter gazed deeply at the beautiful woman before him, mentally pleading with her to understand. "I know expressing emotion is not my thing…"

But before Walter could ramble on about how he was emotionally faulty, Paige had closed the gap between them and crushed her lips to his. Once Walter had clicked onto what was happening, he closed his eyes and gave into the intimacy he was experiencing with the woman in his arms. Paige's fingers began running through his hair before cupping his cheeks, as Walter's hands surprised him and instinctively found her waist, bringing her closer to him. It was Paige who broke the kiss, but she didn't break out of his arms. Leaning her forehead against Walter's, she closed her eyes and willed her jumping heart to slow down.

"Be mine, Paige?" Paige moved her forehead back so she could look Walter in the eyes. She could see so much emotion in those dark brown orbs; love, sincerity, fear. "I may not always be able to say what I feel, but I hope you will always know that I am here for you. I want to make you happy."

Paige smiled widely back at him, "I have always been yours Walter, I have just been waiting for you to be ready for me." And with that, she reclaimed his lips in a soaring kiss.

FIN…


End file.
